Nutcracker : Examining the intersection of disinformation, hate speech and migration in the era of fake news

In the contemporary landscape, driven by populism and polarisation, misinformation has emerged as a critical concern, particularly due to its documented link to the proliferation of hate speech and the hostility to which lying can lead. Fake news stories circulating online can influence attitudes, perceptions, and behaviours, and allegedly have led to political crises and instability, even putting democracy at risk. With this in mind, this paper delves into the interplay between migration and fake news, and sheds light on the dynamics that mould public opinion, and foster hatred and suspicion towards migrants. Embracing an interdisciplinary approach, we examine the mechanisms by which fake news and conspiracy theories exploit anti-migration narratives, with the result of influencing public discourse, setting political agendas and impacting social cohesion. To this end, we draw upon the principles of Nutcracker , a semi-supervised algorithm developed to detect and analyse social media profiles that propagate extremist content and disinformation, across topical domains, including migrants and governmental migration policies; for further annotation, we also use the free platform Label Studio . The data reveal that migrants are frequently misrepresented through fake narratives that neglect the complex drivers of migration and their contributions to host societies. Among the strategies used to portray the social actors in our X migration corpus are the following: Migrants are depicted as economic burdens, threats to local employment, or are associated with illegality, criminality and terrorism; additionally, their nationality, religion and physical appearance are problematised, which helps reinforce exclusionary and stereotypical discourses. Undeniably, all this can foster xenophobia, and exacerbate societal divisions, ignoring the nuanced reality of migration. Thus, alongside refining the algorithm, developing a taxonomy of fakespeech and improving hate speech detection, this study aims to show how disinformation and hate speech intersect in migration discourse, with implications for political, media and educational contexts.